Long-term shortstop

Confident Lugo believes the Sox are in a position of strength with him for years to come

January 28, 2007|Amalie Benjamin, Globe Staff

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- My guy will pick you up. He'll be wearing a uniform. Julio Lugo, with a smile and a disarming twinkle in his eye, says no more than that. The driver arrives in a forest-green Range Rover, wearing a different kind of uniform -- fatigues from his day job as a sergeant in the Dominican army. No indication that in his country, Lugo likes to dress, eat, live, and travel in style. It starts to become evident as you notice the Gucci loafers sticking out below his designer jeans, the Chanel sunglasses pushed to the crown of his head, the welcoming advances from the waitstaff at the chic Santo Domingo eatery.

It becomes obvious as he sits -- holding hands with his wife, Sulky, at a table where one can be seen -- amid the chatter of the Tuesday lunchtime crowd in this Americanized restaurant (where even the menus are in English) and waves to indicate all that he has before him.

This is my circle. These are my people.

"I spend most of the year here," the new Red Sox shortstop said, in English perfected from his family's move to Brooklyn when he was 13 years old. "When the season's over, I used to go to Houston. I have a house there. Then I come here to the Dominican when I start working out and I spend most of my time here. I like it here. I feel very good here. I'm a king; I'm a king here."

In a country in which absolute wealth is contrasted by absolute poverty, the 31-year-old Lugo lives, in a sense, removed from his surroundings. It is a life he loves, one made possible by his other great love. Baseball.

Like so many boys in the rest of the Dominican, a place where a baseball field nearly surpasses a church in importance, Lugo grew up wanting nothing more than to make his living playing a game. And he has, earning millions, courtesy of an uncanny athleticism, a knack for hitting, and an enthusiasm that rivals that of his close friend and the Dominican's favorite son, David Ortiz.

"That's where he finds the most joy, on the baseball field," said Perry Keith, the coach at Connors State College in Warner, Okla., where Lugo played before being drafted by the Houston Astros in the 43d round in 1994. "He was that way when he was 18, 19 years old, and he's the same way today."

Uplifting personality His face crumples with effort, the force of the weights coming down on his weakened body, as he works to ready himself for the upcoming season in a small, tightly packed gym filled with roaming personal trainers and too much equipment. Still fighting off the effects of an illness that has shaved 10 pounds off his already slight frame -- listed at 6 feet 1 inches and 175 pounds, he looks no more than 160 -- Lugo is charged with adding enough bulk to last a season in Boston.